Safety in the automotive industry is of high importance both with respect to vehicle-pedestrian impacts and vehicle-vehicle impacts. Most modern vehicles today have relatively advanced safety systems including airbags for protection of occupants of the vehicle, and external sensors on the vehicle to provide collision warnings or even automatic braking when a collision can be predicted.
Apart from electronic safety systems, the structure of the vehicle itself may also be particularly designed to behave in a predetermined way in case of an impact with a foreign object or a pedestrian. This applies for example to the front structure of the vehicle.
The front structure of a vehicle may include a bumper and a crash beam. The crash beam may often be designed to deform in a predetermined way in order to absorb the energy from a collision, for instance via the inclusion of “crash boxes”. Further, the front structure often includes a radiator, a shutter, and an air guide behind a grille, where the air guide is configured to redirect incoming air flow towards the radiator via the shutter.
The components of the front structure, including the radiator, the shutter, and the air guide, adds stack up in the driving direction of the vehicle and therefore also possess an increased risk of severe damages on the vehicle itself but also on foreign objects, or injuries on and pedestrians in case of a low speed collision.
US2016/0131020 describes one example of an air guide that attempts to reduce the damages caused by the air guide to the frontal structures of the counter colliding vehicle in case of an impact, for the benefit of insurance companies. The air guide described in US2016/0131020 includes a structure for telescopic crushing of the air guide in case of impact. The telescopic crushing is enabled by folds in the walls of the air guide. In addition, the air guide described in US2016/0131020 is assembled from several sections that are fitted inside each other. An assembly of several air guide sections fitted in each other may lead to air leakage in the air guide between the sections. Furthermore, the manufacturing of the air guide disclosed in US2016/0131020 is relatively complicated with its folds and several sections.
Accordingly there is room for improvements in air guides for vehicles that reduce the risk of damages or injuries in case of collision.